Jerusalem Day 2026: Israelis Chant “May Your Village Burn” and “Death to Arabs” on State-Sponsored “Flag March”

On May 14, 2026, thousands of Israelis poured through Jerusalem’s Old City walls shouting “Death to Arabs” and “Gaza is a graveyard” while assaulting Palestinian shopkeepers, activists, and journalists in an annual Flag March marking Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.1 This year, the event fell on May 14, overlapping with March 15, the day Palestinians commemorate the Nakba.

Before the march began, Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, unfurled an Israeli flag in front of al-Aqsa Mosque, saying, “We restored governance on the Temple Mount [al-Haram al-Sharif] thanks to determination and deterrence. This year, Ramadan was the quietest, thanks to deterrence. The Temple Mount is in our hands.”2 Ben-Gvir was referring to Israel’s closure of al-Aqsa Mosque for 40 days during Ramadan this year amid the war on Iran, which barred Muslims from near and far from accessing their third holiest site (see As Ramadan Ends, al-Aqsa Mosque Remains Empty and Palestinians Take to the Streets in Silent Protest).

The Old City’s Muslim Quarter was nearly empty, even before 11:00 a.m. Israeli police had ordered storeowners to close their shops before the nationalist parade commenced later that afternoon.3 Swarms of extremist Israeli religious youth—some appearing as young as 10 years old4 —stormed the streets chanting racist slogans such as “May your village burn,” “May Shu’fat refugee camp burn,” “a Jew has a soul, an Arab is a son of a bitch,” and “Muhammad is dead,” referring to the Muslim prophet.5 Other choice slogans included:

• “Death to Arabs—We will rape their wives.”
• “They received another Nakba.”
• “It’s not ‘al-Aqsa Mosque’—it’s ‘Temple Mount’.”
• “May Palestine’s name be wiped out.”
• “The eternal people do not fear a long road.”

Marchers donned stickers calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and passed out decals advocating for Jewish resettlement of the besieged enclave. Participants also slapped stickers depicting anti-Arab Rabbi Meir Kahane and praising Israel’s recently passed death penalty law onto the closed doors of the Old City’s shops (see Israel’s Death Penalty Law Passed: What Does That Mean for Palestinian Jerusalemites?).6

Mobs of Israeli teenagers harassed Palestinian residents, journalists, and activists who were there to defend Palestinians from such attacks, before the official march even began. They snatched reporters’ phones, threw water and coffee at a Haaretz journalist, and spewed racist epithets and homophobic slurs at passersby. They also hurled chairs at Palestinian shops that were still open.7 During the march, participants were caught on CCTV footage spitting toward a shrine of the Virgin Mary.8

The display of hatred occurs every year and is funded by the Jerusalem Municipality to the tune of NIS 500,000 (approximately $172,000).9 In 2026, Israel’s government budgeted NIS 1.2 million ($400,000) so other cities could also hold similar Jewish supremacist marches.10 Promoted by the state as celebrating the “reunification” of Jerusalem, the march debuted in 1968 when followers of ultranationalist Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook flocked to the Western Wall in song and dance, celebrating Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967 (see Remembering the Naksa and Where Is Jerusalem?).

In recent years, anti-Palestinian violence during the event has increased dramatically.11 Residents of the Old City and observers of the march say the attacks are even worse this year.

“Last year, we saw a lot of violence, a lot of verbal violence, racist songs, spitting, harassment of girls coming home from school,” Nati, a volunteer helping to protect the neighborhood during the so-called Flag March, told Haaretz. “We’ve seen it taken up a notch. Each year it gets worse. Last year, there were some eruptions that were really scary.”12

The march ended as it began: with the crowd rolling out a massive Israeli flag adjacent to the Western Wall where 59 years ago, Israeli soldiers bulldozed what was once the Moroccan Quarter, expelling its 650 Palestinian residents in the process (see The Destruction of Jerusalem’s Moroccan Quarter: From Centuries-Old Maghrebi Community to Western Wall Prayer Plaza).13 Now, scores of Israelis dance on the neighborhood’s ruins, chanting for even more destruction and expulsion.